1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to sleeves for protecting elongate members, and more particularly to nonwoven acoustic protection sleeves for receiving elongate members therein and to their method of construction.
2. Related Art
It is known that wires and wire harnesses carried in tubular sleeves in vehicles, such as in automobiles, aircraft or aerospace craft, can produce undesirable noise while the vehicle is in use. The noise typically stems from the wires or harness vibrating against adjacent components, wherein the vibration results from vibrating components in the vehicle, and in the case of automotive vehicles, movement of the vehicle over a ground surface. As such, it is customary to spirally wrap wires and wire harnesses with sound masking tape to reduce the potential for noise generation. Unfortunately, applying tape is labor intensive, and thus, costly. In addition, the appearance of the tape can be unsightly, particularly over time as the tape wears. Further, in service, tape can provide difficulties in readily accessing the wound wires.
Other than applying tape, it is also known to provide tubular acoustic protection in the form of woven, braided or knitted fabric sleeves about the wires. Although these fabric sleeves generally prove useful, they can be relatively costly due to manufacturing processes and yarn materials used to construct the sleeves.
It is further known to provide tubular acoustic protection in the form of a tubular assembly including solid extruded PVC tubing that is subsequently wrapped with polyurethane foam after disposing the wires through the PVC tubing. The PVC tubing provides the structural support to the assembly and the polyurethane foam provides the acoustic dampening to the assembly. Although this type of assembly can prove useful in routing wires and suppressing noise generation, it is a costly solution from both a material content and installation standpoint. Further, installation can be troublesome, if not impossible, as a result of not being able to route the rigid PVC of the tubular assembly about tight corners. Further, although the outer polyurethane foam is provided to suppress noise, the hard inner surface of the PVC tubing can result in the generation of noise, thereby countering the ability of the tubular assembly to optimally suppress noise.
An acoustic sleeve manufactured according to the present invention overcomes or greatly minimizes any limitations of the prior art described above, and also provides enhanced potential to suppress noise generation by elongate members carried in the sleeves.